<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Next Time You Ride With Me by An_Odd_Idea</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27323278">Next Time You Ride With Me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/An_Odd_Idea/pseuds/An_Odd_Idea'>An_Odd_Idea</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Fears of bombs, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Rhodey is the best, Tony Stark Gets a Hug, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, aftermath of kidnapping, no actual bombs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:55:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>536</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27323278</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/An_Odd_Idea/pseuds/An_Odd_Idea</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Comfortember prompt 1: Rescue</p><p>Just a retelling of the scene from Iron Man that didn’t end up in the movie where when Rhodey finds Tony in the desert he sees the arc reactor and thinks it’s a bomb</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tony Stark &amp; James “Rhodey” Rhodes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Comfortember 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Next Time You Ride With Me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I didn’t like how this was done in the novelization, so here we are.</p><p>Branching out slightly from my usual Irondad writing.  It’s short, and maybe kind of awkward, but I really wanted to write it</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Tony looked like he’d died, gone to hell, and been spit back out by way of volcano, but he was alive. Rhodey would have liked to tackle him in a hug, but Tony wasn’t great with displays of emotion even at the best of times. That, and whatever injuries he undoubtedly had probably made a bear hug a bad idea anyway.</p><p>“How was the fun-vee?” Rhodey asked instead, because the last thing they needed on top of an injured and probably traumatized Tony was a mentally closed-off Tony who wouldn’t answer any questions about how he was feeling or cooperate with anything they tried to do for him.</p><p>The joke did the trick, and Tony smiled slightly, just a ghost of a smile, and took a shuffling step toward him, until his knees gave out and he collapsed in the sand. Rhodey darted forward, with some half-formed idea of just scooping him up all on his own and carrying him off somewhere safe, but stopped in his tracks.</p><p>“Tones...”</p><p>Alarm bells clanged in his head, because that was a bomb. They’d put a bomb on Tony, <em>in</em> Tony, it was actually imbedded inside his chest, and if it went off... </p><p>God, if it went off.</p><p>“Tones!” Rhodey dropped to his knees as well, trying to see, trying to get a look at what the glowing circle was made of. “How long? How long til that thing goes off?”</p><p>Tony blinked at him, his brow furrowed, like his brain wasn’t working quite fast enough to keep up. Probably half crazy from dehydration by now.</p><p>“Listen to me Tony, the bomb.” It was an effort to speak more slowly when really the only reasonable-sounding idea was to go even faster. “We gotta disarm it. Is there a switch?” He looked, but there didn’t seem to be even a wire outside.</p><p>“It’s not... not....” Tony rasped, waving a weak hand.</p><p>“I’m not leaving you, buddy.” Rhodey gripped his arm, tighter than he intended.  If it went off now... Well he just wouldn’t let it go off. That wasn’t allowed. “Not after all this.  Now tell me how this thing works.”</p><p>“Not a... not a bomb.” Tony swayed forward and Rhodey caught him, wincing a bit, but the thing didn’t explode.</p><p>“Then what the hell is it?”</p><p>“Reactor.”</p><p>“Reactor.” Last time he’d checked, reactors powered factories; they didn’t fit inside people’s chests.</p><p>“Yeah...” Tony melted into him, practically face planting into his shoulder, and all the questions about where he’d been or why there was a reactor in his chest or how that wasn’t killing him had to wait. Rhodey hugged him, as gently as he could, and Tony might have cried, but he was too well hidden to tell.</p><p>“Next time you ride with me, okay?”</p><p>He swore he felt Tony smile then, but he couldn’t look to be sure. Tony stayed hidden in his shoulder until the medics made him let go, and then Rhodey hovered near them as close as he was allowed. Tony passed out almost immediately after that, but Rhodey stayed by him, just to watch and be sure he was safe. He didn’t think he wanted to let Tony out of his sight again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading!  Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated, or come visit me on tumblr @an-odd-idea</p><p>Please do not print or reproduce this work outside this site</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>